Why is Search Engine Optimization Important - 5 Ways

So, you've built a website. Join the club. There are millions like you who have collectively built billions of web pages. And you can bet that they all, like you, would love more traffic coming to their sites each day. So, what can you do?

Well, you can always pay for traffic. This is actually an excellent option, but anybody who has done it before will tell you that paid search (SEM) is no walk in the park. Unless you have some serious skills or have someone else managing it for you, SEM often shows a negative ROI. So, where does that leave you? With search engine optimization, or SEM.

If you are asking, "Why is search engine optimization important," here are 5 ways:

1. Getting visits requires active promotion:

At last count (by the folks that count these types of things), there are hundreds of millions of websites and billions of web pages out on the Internet.

a. direct URL input (somebody enters a web address/URL directly into their browser, which of course means they have to already know that URL)

b. a referral from another website (such as a directory site, or someone posting backlinks to your site)

c. paid traffic (e.g., ads, see above)

d. being found on a search engine

If you are looking to be found on search engines, you will need to actively promote your site. There is really no other way to be found, except for maybe in the cases whereby someone is searching for your name or company name, or if they are doing an exact search (using quotation marks) for a specific bit of text that they know resides on your site.

2. SEO is an important alternative or complement to paid traffic:

While paid traffic (or SEM) can be a great solution, it is very costly. And, it has no long term effect, meaning that with paid traffic, once you turn it off, it's off. However, a good SEO campaign, in tandem with a strong SEM campaign, can pack a winning punch for getting more traffic to your site.

3. It's something you can build over time:

SEO is great because you can do a little bit each day, building traffic to your site over time. I like to think of time spent on it as an investment. Looking for returns on this investment after a month or two is not going to be satisfying, but looking at the mid-to-long term you will see strong returns on the investment of your time and money.

4. You can do it yourself or get an expert to help you:

SEO is something that anyone can do. Of course, if you or your company have the budget, getting the help of an expert will save you time, money and wasted effort in the long run. An expert will know how to help you select the right keywords for which to optimize your site.

5. What you learn during SEO can feed back to your marketing and strategic efforts:

Doing search engine optimization work for your company (or calling in an outside expert) is a wonderful opportunity to come to terms with many of those nagging branding and messaging questions that you may have been avoiding. In other words, by writing about, thinking about and otherwise spending time on your company's website and its content, you will be able to feed back much of what you learned during that discovery process to your strategic and marketing efforts in general.

Search engine optimization is important for a number of reasons. If you are looking to solidify your company's branding/messaging, build a long-term asset, and have a strong alternative to paid search, I strongly recommend you give SEO a try.